Italy 2004 Warm Weather Training

Sunday, January 30 2005 @ 09:41 PM GMT

Contributed by: eimhin

Finally got around to pulling together the trip reports people emailed me last April. Hopefully, It'll give some idea of what to expect in 2005.

I arrived at the airport having met some of the people going on the trip once before briefly. I was worried that I may not have taken enough gear with me until I noticed that the experienced tsunami members were taking less than half the stuff that I had. After a brief flight and a bus ride, where I explained to Scott my lack of training preparation, we arrived at the hotel...

The first day of training was fairly intense. We completed a good swim, a long hilly cycle and a 7k run. As far as I was concerned things were only going to get harder as the week went on. I decided not to read the plan for the rest of the week so I could just take the individual activities as they came. By the end of the week I felt that we had completed a lot of training and I learned a lot about planning training sessions.

It was great to train with a good group of people and to spend so much time under the guidence of expert coaching. I also thought it was an ideal holiday since the club is a fun bunch of people to be amongst and great craic. For me it was one of the best holidays ever and a way to catapult me into my first triathon season.

Rory Cawley

Friendly, Fun and just plain Fantastic are some of the words I would use to describe the training week in Italy. The facilities were top class which made everything so simple, apart from the training which was tough but enjoyable. The coaches Lisa and Scot brought a professional approach to the week, squeezed everything out of us and pushed us to places we didn't think our body could go. It's fair to say that all levels were catered for and everyone went home with something...

Cesenatico BMX Champion 2004

We were down but not out - and we hadn?t even got on the plane. Expecting 17 people but only 14 showed up for the flight. We headed of to Bologna, Italy, seated amongst some noisy Italian middle-aged rugby heads. Vincent, Blaithnead and Amanda would follow the next day. Hotel Beau Soleil was its usual self. Third year in a row and I still look forward to arriving in Cesanatico - the little village by the Adriatic Sea where we were based for the 8 days. Monday was a killer day. We swam, cycled, swam and ran - barely getting a rest between sessions. I think everyone was surprised at the amount of training we did on the first day. It set the standard for the rest of the week.

The cycling was great - I love the biking around Cesanatico. I was a happy to cycle to my old favourites Ronco Fredo and Longiano. Eimhin launched himself off the bike coming down the hill - a bit battered but he made it home and brushed it off well. The interval sessions pushed us to our limits. At times I was hanging over the handle bars trying to catch a breath. It was great to hear the encouragement from behind when giving it your all. We never settled "king of the hill" though - maybe next year, although we did do a duathlon (1/6/1/6/1) towards the end of the week which Tom won.

Lisa pushed us through some tough swim sessions. Four lanes of swimmers every morning between 9 and 10. No excuses, just hard swimming for at least 3km. As ever, the pool was crystal clear, just the right temperature and a pleasure to swim in. During the week we did some endurance sets, some speed work, a time trial, some wetsuit swimming and some spent time on their underwater handstand walking.

Scott pretty much organised the running as well. There were two days of intervals, one on the trail in the forest by the hotel and one day on the beach. I enjoyed the running and found it far better than just going out for a 40 min run. Short and intense.

A trip to Neri, the local bike shop, was a welcome rest from the training. Always good to get some new stuff. The winter gear is especially cheap at this time of year.

I would like to finish by saying the walkie talkies were good craic. I now believe that there is no job a Leatherman cannot do and will be practicing for the arm-wrestling competitions. Hope you'll all go again next year. My new Kestrel bike has arrived. See you at the finish line.

Ray O'Neill

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